The Rising(54)

His phone beeped with an incoming text message from a Watcher, the bright translucent letters piercing the spill of the parking lot’s darkness.

FOUND DANCER. LOCATION FOLLOWS.





54

DIAGNOSIS

“I’VE GOT THE CODE,” Sam said, retaking the seat next to Alex.

When his eyes remained rooted on the screen, she leaned across and typed in the access code another twenty dollars had bought her. Instantly, the screen jumped back to life, Alex regarding her briefly before returning his attention to his mother.

*

—until the results of the blood tests came back and Dr. Chu asked us to come back in so he could take another sample. I hated watching him do it, sticking that needle in your arm and filling one vial and then another. He wouldn’t tell me why he needed the tests repeated but I feared the worst.

You were sick, with some awful illness certain to take you from us. Why else would someone have abandoned you the way they did? It all made sense now. A monstrous act for a parent to abandon a child, no matter how sick, especially when your father and I wanted one so badly and never could have a child.

But we had you and that was enough. I held you while Dr. Chu siphoned off the blood he needed, swearing I’d always love you no matter what. Even if always was only another week or a month. I prepared myself for the inevitable, for learning the name of whatever disease you’d been born with.

Except it didn’t have a name; it wasn’t even a disease. The results of the second test came back and Dr. Chu wanted to do a third. I wouldn’t let him until he explained why. He showed me the first two blood tests, identical in all respects, with the results all out of whack. Numbers wildly askew to the point where they made no sense. White counts, red counts, T cells, liver enzymes, kidney function—nothing was right.

There must be a mistake, I told him, even as I knew there couldn’t be, not two times in a row.

It’s impossible, Dr. Chu said, because if these numbers are correct, then your baby couldn’t possibly be alive.

But you were, at least for now. Miracles happen, don’t they, and the world is held together by fate. Fate dictated that I find you and fate dictated you would survive no matter what the numbers said.

But even miracles have their limits, and I resolved not to rely only on them. I scoured San Francisco for Chinese herbalists, practitioners of the most ancient medicine known to man. None of them would treat an infant. One, a mostly blind man, said yes, but he needed to examine you first, needed to know you by touch.

So I lifted you out of your stroller and placed you in his withered arms with scars from the years he’d spent in a Chinese prison. He ran his fingers over your face, your head, your chest, your arms and legs. I watched him start to quiver, then shake. I barely was able to take you from his grasp before he slammed backward against the wall, looking to be in the throes of some kind of seizure.

No! he spat out. No! Leave, you must leave!

In that moment I met his eyes and I knew he could see. Impossible, I know, but something had happened. Touching you had triggered something so deep inside him that his sight returned. But then, just as quickly, his gaze hazed over and he slumped down the wall to the floor, pale with shock. I put you back in the stroller and tried to help him but he wouldn’t let me. Just pushed me away, screaming in some Chinese dialect I didn’t recognize. To this day I don’t know what he was saying but I know he was scared, terrified.

I bundled you back in the car and drove straight to Dr. Chu. Night had fallen and he was just closing up his office. I blocked his way, wouldn’t let him pass until he told me the truth. I pressed him, left him no choice.

We went back inside, into his office. He only turned on a single light, kept glancing down at you in the stroller, his eyes not terrified like the old blind man’s, but wary and uncertain. The results of the third test mirrored the first two. Identical again, leading Dr. Chu to a conclusion that defied his Harvard education and fifty years of medical experience.

Your son is not dead, but he should be, he told me. There can only be one explanation for this. Even if it makes no sense, it’s all we’re left with.…

You’re not human, Alex.





55

BLINDS

RATHMAN’S TEAM HAD THE FedEx Office surrounded, all exits covered. He’d been viewing the store’s interior through his Brunton Eterna ELO Highpower binoculars ever since arriving fifteen minutes ago. At just thirty-two ounces they delivered a crisp, clear image thanks to a bright fifty-one-millimeter objective and BaK-4 prism glass with fully multicoated lenses. But such high-tech lenses had trouble penetrating even the thin blinds that had been drawn over the store’s windows. Maybe they were there all the time, to shut out the harsh afternoon sun. Rathman didn’t know, didn’t care.

A young man and woman sat side by side behind one of the computers rented by the hour. Used to be hotel rooms were sold like that. Now computers were, cars too. The world had come a long way.

Or maybe not.

Even when Rathman caught a head-on look at the young man and woman, the flimsy blinds obscured their faces just enough to prevent positive identification of his targets.

Well, mostly.

This was the store to which the now deceased motel clerk had provided directions. A young man and young woman matching the descriptions of Alex Chin and the young woman driving the Volkswagen were inside. The only thing that made Rathman uneasy from a planning perspective was the absence of the Volkswagen from the parking lot. It must be parked out of sight somewhere, something that made perfect sense.